The President's Page

President Tripathi shares what's on his mind

UB 2020: A Vision, A Path, A Transformation

Whenever I talk with alumni visiting campus after a long time
away, they invariably have two reactions. First, they are amazed by
how much has changed since their student days. And then they
realize that what is truly exciting is what has not
changed—the UB spirit they know and love.

For me, that response goes to the heart of what makes UB great.
Great universities know their history. They celebrate their
traditions. At the same time, they never stop evolving, refining
and moving toward the next frontier.

There’s no doubt that UB has transformed. These changes
are visible everywhere you look. You’ll find them in the
research lab, where Communities of Excellence are bringing
together scholars across the disciplines to break ground in
critical areas from climate change to cancer therapy. You’ll
find them in historic campus icons like the beautifully renovated
Hayes Hall, whose grand reopening we celebrated this fall, and in
brand-new buildings constructed on all three UB
campuses—including the state-of-the-art downtown home for the
Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, opening in 2017.
And you’ll find them in the classroom, library and learning
spaces throughout campus and beyond, where this fall’s launch
of an innovative general education curriculum is the
centerpiece of a reimagined undergraduate experience.

Transformation on this scale doesn’t happen overnight. It
develops slowly, incrementally, over many years. Transformation
takes shape through many voices and viewpoints coming together in
the shared pursuit of excellence.

That’s exactly what has happened at UB. More than a decade
ago, we launched the UB 2020 strategic vision, setting in motion the
institutional transformation that continues today.

We imagined a new research paradigm gathering scholars across
fields to tackle urgent challenges—huge, complex,
multifaceted problems facing health care, the environment and
social justice.

We imagined a unique educational experience that brings the
research enterprise closer to our students and offers relevant,
direct experiences preparing them for global leadership in their
chosen fields.

We recognized that to fully realize our vision, we would also
need to create physical landscapes supporting world-class research
and education. We imagined three distinct, vibrant UB campuses,
seamlessly connected to each other and deeply embedded in their
communities.

And we set to work building the components of this
vision—step by step.

The scope of UB’s transformation is expansive. But every
element stems from a simple principle, one that has been part of
the bedrock of our university since our founding 170 years ago.
That principle is about collaboration toward the public
good—whether that means partnering across the disciplines to
confront a threat to public health or social justice, working to
build a physical campus plan that enhances our connections with
each other and with our neighborhoods, or preparing our students to
be engaged citizens who will transform their communities locally
and globally.

So while UB has transformed in incredible ways, the vision
driving this transformation is the same that has guided us from the
start: to make the world around us a better place through our ideas
and our discoveries. We know that to realize this vision fully, it
must be more than an abstract ideal. We have to live it and build
on it every day. And we have to model it for our students—so
they have the foundation to create their own profound impact as
tomorrow’s graduates.